


Verity

by TheScholarlyStrumpet (equipoise)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equipoise/pseuds/TheScholarlyStrumpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He spun words into wicked deeds and straw into gold, the curse singing in his veins. </p><p>And then, one day, there was a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verity

**Author's Note:**

> A Rumbelle ficlet/drabble/etc. Basically just words that got stuck in my head until I put them on paper...

“I don’t have a father.”

It was the first lie he remembers telling.

Well, the first lie he told without Malcolm’s prompting.

At that age, his tenuous grasp on procreation allowed for a world in which fathers were superfluous. Like any boy raised near farmland, he was aware of the mechanics of mating season but not its full purpose.

Mothers were necessary, obviously. Everyone had to have a mother because it was her body that made one’s first bed. It was the mother that first expelled any creature into the wild world beyond the womb. Mothers gave milk and warmth to their pups and foals. He learned that without ever being told.

Even if his own mother had disappeared not long after he took his own first, uncertain steps away from her, she had to have held him to her heavy breast once upon a time. She had given him this small, wretched life. It was more than his father ever gave.

His aunts were like mothers now, though they had never given life. They gave him food and shelter. They taught him to spin and marveled at the dexterity of his swift little fingers.

“Look at that talent! He’s a natural spinner, he is.”

It was the first praise he remembers receiving.

It glowed red-hot like an ember in his mind. It twinkled like a star behind his eyelids.

He kept spinning and he kept growing. The first he did with ever-expanding skill and aplomb. The latter was a stunted progression, at best.

It was enough to catch her eye. A girl, bright-eyed and dark-haired, with a quick wit and a silver laugh. Milah. She made him smile shyly into his basket of wool. She made his hands shake, nearly upsetting the shuttle. She saw something in him he had never dared see in himself.

Milah wanted a family. With him. A family with a mother _and_ a father and a chance for the tangible happiness that always flit away so fast when he came near it. A way to wipe clean his past with tears of joy rather than sorrow.

“I will be with you always, my Milah.”

It was the second lie he remembers telling, although he did not know it at the time.

It would not be the last.

War made the liar a coward, as well. It only took a moment of strength. Years later, he would tell himself it had to be that way. To lose a wife and gain a son. But the hold proved tenuous at best. Power made the coward careless. And he was still Malcolm’s child, after all.

It only took a moment of weakness.

The next 300 years were written in half-truths and lies of omission. Because the truth was deadlier than even his dark powers. He spun words into wicked deeds and straw into gold, the curse singing in his veins. Hate became the succor that love never gave.

And then, one day, there was a girl.

She made his shriveled heart do strange things within his reptilian chest.

With her wide blue eyes and endless questions and unfaltering smile and fearless confidence. With her arms wrapped around him as though it was an everyday occurrence to hug the Dark One. With her hair that always smelled of the sunshine she brought into his home.

And with her kisses that tasted like hope, tainted only by his own deepest fears.

But fear was always the most demanding Master. And he had a mission still to complete, after all. A curse to enable. A son to recover.

The coward sent her away. The liar did not look back.

“She died.” Regina's smug smile was a knife to his gut.

It was the first lie he remembers her telling him.

Had he been a stronger man, he might have made her prove it. But it felt too much like truth. Because only truth could sear the flesh and stop the heart like that.

Nearly three decades in a mindless ignorant bliss of avarice until a Savior’s name was spoken. Newly awoken, the vicious debt-collecting pawnbroker made his moves to put the Queen back in check.

And then she was there, a girl with Belle’s face. In his shop. In his arms. Asking the coward to protect her.

When the smoke cleared, Belle returned to the girl’s empty, frightened eyes and Rumplestiltskin was fully restored inside the suit of Mr. Gold.

“Wait, Rumplestiltskin… " Her voice rang out. "I remember. I love you.”

“And I love you.”

It was the first truth he remembers telling.


End file.
